CFIA reviewing reportable diseases
From The Western Producer
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is reassessing the list of animal diseases that it deems reportable, immediately notifiable, and annually notifiable.
Dr. Penny Greenwood, national manager of domestic disease control for the CFIA, said the current list is due for an update.
“A lot of the things that we used to put the specific diseases on the reportable list have come and gone. There’s no objective criteria that we have to say, ‘oh yes, this disease meets these criteria, therefore it should be a reportable disease,’ or ‘no, it doesn’t meet these criteria and therefore it shouldn’t be a reportable disease.’ So that’s a big issue.”
Lack of specific criteria could potentially delay federal response in the face of serious zoonotic diseases, which are those that can also affect people.
Animal diseases on the CFIA’s reportable list are those deemed important to either animal or human health or to the Canadian economy. Anyone suspecting an animal to have one of the 31 diseases on the list must report it immediately to a CFIA veterinarian.
Ten of the 31 diseases on that list have never been found in Canada, but it does contain such things as BSE, brucellosis, chronic wasting disease, equine infectious anemia and scrapie.